In today's busy world, shoppers look to technology for ways to make the shopping experience easier, faster and more secure. Stores look to technology to lower the high cost of sales transactions which is directly attributable to the increasingly high cost of hiring and paying employees. Therefore, there is a need for greater automation of the purchase and sales transaction process. Credit cards and debit cards are now the methods of payment favored by many shoppers over cash because of the convenience and also because many shoppers are hesitant to carry large amounts of cash. As today's commerce moves toward a paper-less transactional paradigm, the traditional shopping list hand-written on a sheet of paper has evolved into a list digitally stored in a handheld computer. These conveniences have improved the shopping experience to a certain level, but many inconveniences remain in the shopping experience. Since most of the buying public cannot afford a personal shopper there are still many drawbacks inherent in the shopping experience which need to be addressed.
One such drawback is the necessity of carrying and handling methods of payment, such as credit cards. Consider a shopper on a shopping excursion during a busy holiday weekend and assume that this shopper intends to pay for purchases with department store credit cards. Every purchase made by the shopper involves removing the credit card from a wallet after first removing the wallet from a purse or trouser pocket. Then, after the transaction is finalized with the credit card, requiring the shopper's signature, the shopper needs to replace the card back in the wallet. Consider a shopper performing this ritual several times over the course of a shopping expedition, each time loaded down with more and more bags of purchases. The potential for misplacing the credit cards or the purchases increases with each transaction. In addition, this same shopper has to be constantly vigilant that no one will steal the purchases, the credit cards, or even the shopper's wallet or purse.
Credit card purchases also generate paper in the form of receipts. The shopper has to properly store the receipts, which are easy to misplace. Many shoppers do not want to carry receipts because of the fear that someone could appropriate the receipt and copy a signature or credit card number from the receipt. This is why many gasoline station payment systems do not print a receipt unless the customer asks for one.
Finding the desired items in a crowded store can be a considerable chore. Assume that the shopper is looking for clothing items and assume also that this shopper is constrained by a budget, as are most shoppers. The shopper needs to first find the desired apparel in the correct size and then check the price of the item. This is not easily accomplished in a crowded store where a shopper needs to check tags on items hanging very close together on racks. Sometimes a shopper has to remove dozens of items from clothing racks in order to find and read the size and price tags in search of the desired garment.
The increasing popularity of purchasing items online has created a need for security measures. One of these is public key encryption. This technology makes it possible for persons purchasing items from an internet site to provide their credit information in a secure manner by using encryption. The technology also provides means for the store to make sure that authorizations for payment are received from the person who purports to send it. There also exists technology for determining whether anyone has tampered with a digital payment authorization message.
There is therefore a need for a device which can overcome the preceding drawbacks and shortcomings in the prior art while preserving secure purchase communications.